The Just Judgment of the Wicked

¹Do you indeed speak righteousness, you silent ones?

Do you judge uprightly, you sons of men?

²No, in heart you work wickedness;

You weigh out the violence of your hands in the earth.

³The wicked are estranged from the womb;[#(Ps. 53:3; Is. 48:8)]

They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.

⁴Their poison is like the poison of a serpent;[#Eccl. 10:11]

They are like the deaf cobra that stops its ear,

⁵Which will not heed the voice of charmers,[#Jer. 8:17]

Charming ever so skillfully.

⁶Break their teeth in their mouth, O God![#Job 4:10]

Break out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord !

⁷Let them flow away as waters which run continually;[#Josh. 2:11; 7:5; Ps. 112:10; Is. 13:7; Ezek. 21:7]

When he bends his bow,

Let his arrows be as if cut in pieces.

⁸Let them be like a snail which melts away as it goes,

Like a stillborn child of a woman, that they may not see the sun.

⁹Before your pots can feel the burning thorns,[#Ps. 118:12; Eccl. 7:6]

He shall take them away as with a whirlwind,

As in His living and burning wrath.

¹⁰The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance;[#(Deut. 32:43); Jer. 11:20]

He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked,

¹¹So that men will say,[#Ps. 92:15; Prov. 11:18; (2 Cor. 5:10)]

“Surely there is a reward for the righteous;

Surely He is God who judges in the earth.”